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HONGKONG AGAIN.
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awe give it for what it is worthathere are at the present moment not less than two thousand pirates, or would-be pirates, in the colony, and they only wait the opportunity to declare their predatory and too often brutal instincts. The Namoa piracy furnishes an instructive example of the ability, forethought, darings and resource of the desperadoes with whom we have to reckon, and whose rendition, when applied for by the Chinese Government, is made so difficult."
Though not personally concerned in this most daring and monstrous proceeding, yet it came near enough to my movements to make me feel that I might have suffered the like horrors had I happened, on the Namoa, or any other coasting steamer, to have travelled with a large number of steerage Chinese passengers (as was the case here) returning to their homes with all their savings from working in foreign countries. This was the evident temptation to the brutal crime, the fact having been disclosed by some accomplice, or perhapsbeingaccidentally promulgated. I had always seen the stand of arms at the top of the companionathe pro form row of long guns and cutlassesastacked all in order, and had silently smiled at their inutility, none of the guns probably being ever loaded. But what another instance of mocking incidents it is that a passenger should have made a remark upon them, and that Captain Pocock should have replied, " They are a relic of the past ; years ago we used to want them, but we don't ever want them now ; " he who an hour afterwards lay in dying agonies, and knowing that his steamer was in the plundering and murdering hands of those againstThough not personally concerned in this most daring and monstrous proceeding, yet it came near enough to my movements to make me feel that I might have suffered the like horrors had I happened, on the Namoa, or any other coasting steamer, to have travelled with a large number of steerage Chinese passengers (as was the case here) returning to their homes with all their savings from working in foreign countries. This was the evident temptation to the brutal crime, the fact having been disclosed by some accomplice, or perhapsbeingaccidentally promulgated. I had always seen the stand of arms at the top of the companiona the pro formA row of long guns and cutlassesa stacked all in order, and had silently smiled at their inutility, none of the guns probably being ever loaded. But what another instance of mocking incidents it is that a passenger should have made a remark upon them, and that Captain Pocock should have replied, " They are a relic of the past ; years ago we used to want them, but we don't ever want them now ; " he who an hour afterwards lay in dying agonies, and knowing that his steamer was in the plundering and murdering hands of those against